Numbers
by NoMittens
Summary: “Numbers matter, and just because you can’t do them, doesn’t make them idiotic.”DHr


**EDIT: **Fixed because some mistakes were absolutely terrible.

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**Numbers**

_When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings. - **W. E. B. Du Bois**_

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"Arithmancy was my forte," she told him tartly as he held up a workbook filled with numbers.

"Obviously." He flipped through it with one hand, the other one keeping her at bay. "It's cold, and concise. Awww, what similarities."

She growled, and launched herself at him again, only to be pushed back on the couch.

"Numbers are correct. They make sense, and they aren't wrong." With that, she drew her wand, and hexed him with a well-placed jelly legs.

"The fuck? Granger!" He cried out, falling, and losing his grip on her damnable math. Taking the sheets, she stopped the charm and looked at him coldly.

"Merlin's beard, Granger. You're a nutter if you think that ones and twos matter more than wands and potions." Looking up at her fiercely, he glared, daring her to try something.

"Numbers matter, and just because you can't do them, doesn't make them idiotic."

He laughed as she left the room.

_One_

He remembers sometimes, the first times they met.

Once, during their first year, she had handed him a book. He had sneered, trying to muster up all of his blood pride.

"Filthy mudblood," he called her, trying so hard to summon up enough bravado to make the third-years approve. She hadn't heard though, as she was too wrapped up in her reading, her bushy hair sheltering her from his intensity. Her stockings having a slight tare at the knees. Now that he thought about it, he should have known that anyone who could ignore a Malfoy was most definitely dangerous. But he had been such an idiot…

His lips met hers years later, after the final celebration fires had died down. His hands were granted access to her body, and his fingers had nimbly traced and outlined her body. She pressed against him, her back to a wall. Her hands remained still, as they moved together, until she came, first, and then her arms reached out. That to, had been a first.

He's a Malfoy. He had born a first. He had been born the only. In his world, the number is the only number that has value. The first sip of wine, the first place medal, the first of a woman - he had been taught that those were the only things worth living for.

She wasn't his first. He wasn't hers. Yet each time with her, it was different. Every night her legs were intertwined with his was a first in his book. Not that he was keeping track of course.

There had been other first moments, and he had tucked them into the pockets of his mind, perusing them as he liked. The first gasp, the first time she held his hand, the first time they had argued so intensely that the door broke as he slammed it.

"Fuck you, Granger," he had told her, coldly and darkly. An hour later, he sat on his piano, gently removing lace and silk from her body.

Or the first time she called him Draco. It was at some office party, and she had introduced him as her boyfriend, Draco Malfoy. His neutral face almost dissolved. She had admitted, had let it slip, yes-I-do-care-about-him. Part of him danced, part of recoiled in shock that it was now in the open. She had finally chosen someone, him in fact, and no one, not Scar-boy, Carrot-face, or his fucking father could take that away.

It is moments like these that he horded. He counted each moment with her as his own. Acquiescing to her was not enough. He demanded more. To touch her, to inhale her scent until he could grapple it and bottle it up. Love. Another disturbingly romantic first in his book. Something about her made him so, he told himself. Waxing poetic, brooding, and relentlessly in need of her.

For some inexplicable reason, every time with her seems like a first. She makes him nervous. He tilted his lips towards her, allowing another first impression to pass from his lips to hers. Each time, he tried to count their moments as a show of trust, not love, just gratitude for some idiot to not blackmail her. And every night was wrong.

Not their first, not their first, not their first. He told himself, trying to push away the memory of waking up entangled in her arms.

_Two_

Second is not acceptable to Hermione Granger. She was always number one. First in her class, first child, first girl for everything. He was the exception to everything. He was her second love, and second touch. A man who lived on ones not twos. Malfoys don't particularly care for second places. He knew that. She knew that.

Her hand had violently struck his cheek the first time he snaked his hand up her skirt, and desecrated her mouth with kisses as heavy as they were forceful. It seems funny, the face of shock on realizing that she indeed could refuse him. Than he broke out in a smirk, and the second time, two weeks later, he started gently, slowly exploring her.

She thinks about the times that they're together. Surely he could remember how she pushed him away the first few times. No, that was a lie. She came to him first. Somewhere between saving the world, and watching it fall apart, they had been drawn together. Hating it, she couldn't help but give in. Not that she hated him. It feels as though she was always second, never first, and Hermione Granger does not do seconds well.

He felt like rock sometimes. She's so glad that the lights are out, so that when she cries, she won't have to see his eyes and the shade of silver that made her neck crawl and her body ache. Hidden beneath all of it, was such passion. The same passion obviously present when he was buried himself inside her. It was there, she was sure.

When he kisses her, she thinks of childhood memories. The teacher always called on her first, and she always had an answer. When he kisses her, she is left open and gaping, unable to give a question, much less answer it.

Their second time was on her couch. They hadn't even made it to the bedroom, and they did it twice. Both times, she had arched her back fiercely when she came, and bit her tongue to keep a scream from escaping.

She was Hermione Granger, and she would not break first.

_Three_

There were three rumours inside the Grimmauld place. One was that Snape was really actually a slimy git who had a taste for children's flesh – Harry was a firm and avid believer. Another was that the Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley were secretly meeting in cozy spaces and getting to know each other rather intimately – Ron had seen to it that he knew every nook and cranny, just in case. And then third one. One that no one was sure of, and dismissed often, was that there was something brewing between Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy.

They refused to admit anything, but tongues wagged and people wondered. Every time he entered a room, she left. When she argued, he would take whichever side was her opposite. She would glare, and he would smirk. It left Harry with a nagging sense of impending doom, and Ron with a desire to poke out someone's eyes. Ginny just smiled and told them that something was bound to happen. The trio began to watch them.

She refused to think of him, growling in fury at the mention of his name. Her time was mostly spent in the Grimmauld library, pouring over books. He would wait until she was done, before doing the same. They never discussed their findings with each other, and it was only though second hand that she knew the twelve steps that fused a man with serpents.

"Oh, you didn't know? I assumed that Malfoy already told you. You two certainly spend enough time up there." Ginny winked. "Anything improper-"

"I don't spend time with ferret-boy. He comes in after I do." Turning the page, she refused to look up from her novel_, Dark and Disturbing Objects and Curses._

"And I don't socialize with pathetic book worms." Malfoy stood in the doorway. Hermione furrowed her eyebrows, and bit her lip. He had asked for it three times now, once by owl, although they had been in the same house, and once by a small green note that had been slipped underneath her door. If he had actually dared to speak to her, it must have been important. Her hands tightened on her book, hers.

She left the two and walked back to the library. If he wanted it, he could find it from the shelf and stop using her. He irked her with his comments, shiny hair, and his quiet studious manner. Three times, she had caught him in the library, his eyes deeply rooted into whatever book he had picked out. It upset her to see that her haven, her place of comfort was being desecrated by the bastard who had made her life hell. Each time she had left, closing the door or walking to another aisle.

He had once paused, and studied her with intensity, and she felt naked with large drooping bags underneath her eyes, and her untameable hair. Then he returned to his book, and she had walked down three aisles, refusing to see him.

_Four_

He had known four deaths that connected with him. His great-aunt and uncle, the small Keazle he had once had, and the rabbit he had used to first perform the Avada. Looking across the battlefield, he had finally counted four people that he had known lying impossibly still. Many more that he didn't. Face up, face down, and even those without faces. He promptly turned and vomited.

She watched him and remembered her first brush with death. It was her choice, and as she help prepare the bodies, her eyes stung as she gently washed McGonagall's arms, bothered more by the scent of death then her former teacher's nudity. The woman's face was drown into repose, and Hermione clenched her hands, remembering how light the body felt when she had carefully dressed it in plain clothing, and prepared it for cremation. It, not she, and definitely not the woman who had given her a life's goal. Somewhere deep inside, she felt a stirring of pity.

But she stayed behind the tent, watching as he mourned twice, once for those who had died, and once for those on the opposing sides. She couldn't understand as he, inscrutable and with eyes slightly moist, gingerly mopping up blood on the body of Charlie, who had died in killing Bellatrix. He had watched the pair battling, and felt torn. She had been family, but he was the right. Both ultimately fell, and she remembered seeing him cradling the woman from Azkaban with such gentleness. It made her wonder. He had dressed and prepared all four bodies, but had saved the Weasley for the last.

He remained quiet, and used his wand to repair the broken nose. A jet of blue floated from his wand, but Charlie's face remained still, with only one eye and two white holes for a nose.

"It won't work on the dead." She told him, immediately ashamed at how harsh she sounded. Clearing her throat, she tried again, "you don't have to do this."

"Today, I watched four people die." His voice was quiet, and smooth, and he carefully edited out that he felt responsible. That he had doubled the number of deaths, well not he, but…

She interrupted his thoughts.

"Are you mourning for her or him?" She took a cloth, dipped it in water, and began to wipe the blood from his forearm, carefully ignoring the dark skull etched into his skin.

"I don't know," he said.

And they worked in silence, each feeling older. Too tired and saddened to hate.

_Five_

She had spent five days in the hospital. Hours after the final battle - the Last and Most Important Stand of Harry Potter as the Prophet called it – she had woken up to a room, filled with streaming sunlight and rows of flowers. Her arms burned, and each part of her body still ached with the after effects of crucio. Her nurse had woken up, and smiled cheerily firing questions at her rapidly.

"G'morning sunshine! You've woken up after only a few hours, this is a very good sign!" the nurse chirped, and Hermione wished to god that she could be given another sleeping potion. It was too early to deal with this.

"So is it true? All that they say about Harry? Was it scary? Did you kill anyone?" She gasped. "Are you in pain!" Her small pale face looked so earnest, and Hermione groaned.

"No," and she remained silent after that.

The mediwitches had told her that she would recover, in time of course, and she should take twelve different potions per day, and one for each night. She herself asked for it, and when the physician had raised an eyebrow, she told him the truth.

"I dislike dreams." She looked up, and the physician nodded. That had been day two.

She spent her third day in limbo, desperately snatching any sort of information she could get. Harry had hobbled in, and the two had nodded before he was escorted away by the same cheery, and frighteningly happy nurse. Looking at Harry's oh-fuck-me face, she had been unsure whether she should laugh or cry. She should smile, she had decided. They had won, and the world was safe. This was the stuff for memories and fodder for future stories with her progeny.

But then she would remember Percy. Neville begging for his life, and loony Luna staring up at her, mouth open and attracting flies. Madame Maxine and Hagrid, laid so that they were entwined. Together in life, and together in death, she thought bitterly. A quintet of death. She remembered how they had all been taken during the same battle. Even Snape, slowly bleeding, with Malfoy trying to do CPR, even as he knew no magic or muggle invention could stop the magical wound. Charlie's face, and Fred's blank eyes remembering another Weasley with the same freckles and face, lost and never found. Wormtail's last heroic efforts, and Professor McGonagall's flames, rising and glowing blue. And there were more, of course, each of their faces burned in her memories, and she was often seen staring blankly into space. Her deaths, she thought, always traveled in fives. The thought made her vomit, and she remembered another blond boy doing the same.

She couldn't smile and laugh, she realized. The flowers made her sick, and she had thrown away each and every well-wishing card. It was inside of her, this well of dark and bitter thoughts. Her reward and punishment for doing what was right. It made her angry, and yet she could do nothing. She was Hermione Granger, and her reputation of good-girl, sweet-girl, kind-loving-save-the-fucking-house-elf-girl prevented her from destroying something, making something or one feel like she did inside.

She stopped eating, and had curled up with her knees to her chest when he hobbled in. It had only been five days, but she had seemed to age five years.

His hair was longer, she noted, and he hobbled more than walk, supporting himself on a cane. It was temporary, of course. They would all be physically fine, no different than those who did not fight in the war. That thought made her angry too, and she stared, angry and hating.

"Eat, you idiot." He panted a little, and leaned against the bed, rubbing his leg. His arms were red, full of scars, and she could see his veins, green and purple against pale cream.

"No." Her voice was sore; it sounded scratchy and tired.

"Fine then, die. Miss out on the grand celebrations they're currently having. Great food, by the way, you should try their fillet mignon. Perfection." His voice was weak, but he was a survivor. His instincts had told him to fight, and time and time again, he chose life rather than death. Death, he knew, was the easy answer. It was giving up and no, I've stopped trying. He tried, always, because deep down inside, he did believe in the better-to-have-died-trying-than-never-to-have-tried-at-fucking-all. It left him less excuses.

"Shut up." She didn't want to hear this. His back was turned to her, and she couldn't see his patrician features staring darkly into the window.

"Shouldn't you be smiling, Granger? They're celebrating for you after all. I hear they've even got a life sized sculpture of Neville, sniveling and –"

"Shut up!" She told him. It was loud, raw, and painful, and some part of her rejoiced in feeling pain. Every nerve was tight, and her body was ready to attack him. Five days, she thought.

"-And then there's this beautiful painting of McGonagall. Changes to a cat and back again. Really-" He continued.

"Stop it. Stop it you ferret bastard. Shut the fuck up, and stop it." She was so close to breaking, he knew. Turning around, he saw her reddened eyes, and pushed a little more.

"Gorgeous. A lot like the old bat. She and Dumbledore have snuck off a few times. Probably shagging around. Really, the big who-"

"Shut the fuck up! I don't want to hear this. Stop it! Just stop…" She launched herself at him, prepared to kill him with her bare hands. It would not have been the first, she thought, and began laughing. He held her gently, as she laughed so hard that tears rolled down, and her peals turned into sharp and hacking sobs. She laughed until she had no more tears, wedged between his arms, and clinging to him with all the might her tiny hands had.

_Six_

There were six scars on her body. He kissed the hollow of her throat as he gently undid her blouse. Her hands were at her side, trembling slightly as he undid each of the six buttons. Breathing quickened, and she resisted the urge to wrap her legs around him. Liquored up, her mind told her to stop, to think this through and to make sure she remembered the contraceptive charm.

His hand unclasped her bra, and pushed down her skirt and panties. He then explored her, studying her contours with his fingertips. Her first scar was on her left breast. He pressed a kiss on it, gently touching the its smooth edge, healed with time. Lestrange she thought, and quivered from his softness.

Her second was long and wrapped from her shoulder blades around to her navel. She had never regretted taking the hit for Ginny, and he knew hours later, the red head would march towards him and verbally attack him for "destroying Hermione's honor and virtue." But being valiant was the last thing he wanted now. And Malfoys generally got almost everything they wanted. He did not remember his father as he traced her scars.

She bit her lip and refused to moan. The closet wall chaffed, but it felt good.

Her arm was home to her third and fourth. There was a constellation of small jagged cuts on her left shoulder. He knew she still avoided stained glass, and he had remembered how she had jumped through, to save him for no bloody reason, and gently kissed the spot. On her right, there was two large holes, a testament to Nagini and the force of her teeth. He snaked an arm underneath hers, and used it to support himself as she began to lean forward, fighting against her upcoming orgasm. She bit her tongue, and tasted blood as it flowed through her rendering her knees useless, and her body breathless. His hand removed himself from her and gently touched her thigh where two large welts. Five and Six, he thought.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and she laughed. It wasn't his issue, she knew. But blood was blood to him. He buried himself inside her and kissed her with force. She wondered if he realized whose blood he was currently tasting, and her hand seemed to move on its own accord, pulling his tie towards her.

Outside, fireworks erupted in the night sky, and large pictures of glorified war were presented by brilliant lights, enlarged, and watched by millions.

"Where's Hermione?" Ron turned to Harry.

"I'm sure she's around," he mumbled, refusing to meet the red-head's eyes.

_Seven._

"We'll be here until doomsday," Ron lamented, as a large book had thrown itself at him, hitting him squarely in the chest. "Blasted novels, I knew they evil."

She threw him an unsure smile, and he stopped. Seven weeks after the party, she returned with the rest of the Golden Trio, as the world had dubbed them, and prepared themselves for the task of cleaning out Grimmauld. Harry had been thinking about finishing the task, and permanently setting up residence there.

"But to do that… I'm finally going to take the damn picture down, and I'm going to do it with glee." Green eyes had lit up, and he rubbed his hands in mock anticipation. Ron chortled while she shook her head, and handed Harry _Uncursing the Cursed_. Disappearing down the hallway, he left Ron and Hermione behind.

"Hermione, could we… could we talk?" Ron asked delicately, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"Sure, Ron." Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, she thought. Seven years of school, and seven months of a dark vicious war would come down to their conversations now. She put her wand back in her pocket, hearing Mad-Eye's voice telling her to mind a buttock. Even after seven weeks, grief hung heavy around her like rain.

"It's just that, everything's so wrong… and I know this isn't the best of times… but… I mean… Ginny suggested and I figured that…" He stopped his babbling, and looked up at her trying to hide his nervousness with a grin.

"Are you and Ferret…er…Malfoy…" He trailed off, looking at the floor again.

"We're… not." She told him, trying to soothe out the weirdness that lay between them. Once, she had thought she had been in love with freckles, red hair, and long arms, strong from quidditch. But that had been before the war, before she had seen death and mayhem and been forced to see that the worst fear wasn't failing classes. He had been beside her, fighting and mourning, but whatever spark had once been between them was now gone, and to see him trying to hard to resurrect him made her rethink.

"Are you sure?" He asked, walking towards her smiling brighter with each and every step. Her heart twisted, and she couldn't answer.

He stood in front of her, and reached for her hands. Leaning down, he brushed his lips against hers, carefully and painstakingly slow. But it was wrong, she thought. She hated how his hands were too large and rough, his nose was too sharp. His hair didn't brush against the crown of her forehead, and the body pressed against her felt so wrong. This boy, or man, before her gently stroked her side, as she stood motionless, hating him, and hating herself for how her body yearned for something darker.

He cupped her cheek, and she broke the kiss.

"I'm not sure," she told him, turning away, hating herself for not caring, not loving the man who seemed perfect for her. Fairytale perfect, she thought. Prince Charming and fairy godmother perfect. She wanted to tell him that she didn't believe in perfect anymore, and to give him something, a tangible reason, because he deserved that much for all they had been through.

"It was a long time ago, what…us... and now… everything's so different Ron, I'm sorry." Pathetic, she knew. But she couldn't tell him the real reason, that seven days ago, she had been with someone else, panting and pressed against a wall.

"So am I," she heard. Then shuffling, movement, and silence.

When she turned around, the room was empty, and she touched her lips, thinking of another place, other lips, and smooth, pale hands.

_Eight_

Eight weeks and they were fighting. She had moved into the mansion, with its strange doors and dark pictures depicting slaughter and chaos. He had only nodded when she appeared, frazzled and tired of her landlord demanding the pleasure of her company. Days later, he had sent his house elves to fetch her things, giving her a spacious guestroom adjacent to the family library. Her eyes, positively dancing at the thought of more books, had been thanks enough.

The rest of the world had stood there, wondering if the apocalypse was coming. Ginny had published an angry letter telling the wizarding world to politely go to hell, and to stop sending howlers at Miss Granger.

"Who, by the way," she had penned, "saved millions of lives. She is the smartest witch of the century, and so if she has a momentary lapse of sanity, so be it."

The howlers had stopped attacking her breakfast, but Draco had stopped checking his mail. One of them had singed his eyebrows, and she had laughed boisterously, telling him that looked just as frightening and sinister with one eyebrow. The world's third most eligible bachelor had rolled his eyes.

She remembered this, while sitting on her bed, staring at the door. He had given her a choice, and she still had no answer.

"You can either sit and wallow forever, or you can start trying to pick up the pieces. I'd suggest you pick the latter." He didn't add that she should stop fighting him, and them. Stop running, he wanted to scream, because you can't run forever. Not that she wouldn't try.

"Because this, us… whatever the hell we're doing isn't. So if it's Harry, than lovely. If it's Ron, than even better." He couldn't even look at her. "But if it's just you, than fuck. Don't bother. Sex is great, but not enough." For you, he wanted to tell her, it's not enough for you.

He then slammed the door closed. The hinges creaked, and she heard him trudging down the halls, his halls.

She had never thought that she would run from him. In her fantasies, it had always been the other way around. He was the bad one, the redeemed one who would eventually leave so she could start over again. It was more complicated now, now that she was the one laying on his bed, covered by only a thin sheet. In her dreams, there had been rain and gloom when she left him. Outside, bright rays spilled across impossibly green grass.

She gently touched the golden band around her finger, and removing it slowly, she palmed it, feeling its heaviness in her hand. Eight weeks, seven hours, six minutes and the world had been right. Sevens marry sevens, and ones marry ones, she remembered. Some old stupid rhyme that she had once known by heart. Of course, it had been about numbers. She had always been about numbers.

Wrapping the sheet securely around her waist, she opened the door. Bitterly, she thought, now or never. And with that, she followed him, preparing herself for a different number.

_Nine_

In the Malfoy parlor, there were nine very ominous portraits. Looking up from his chair, he could see each of the dark, somber, and very expensive portraits glaring, not at him, but at the intruding figure behind him. The one with dark brown curls, and no breeding at all.

His back was still turned towards her, and he wanted so much for her to just leave, or stay. Whatever she choose, for it to be her choice. It was déjà vu. Nine days ago, she had left. Nine days ago, he had tried to smirk, drawing up on all of his reserve to appear not-unhappy and not-broken.

And then, she had stood outside of the gate, surprising him with a repentant smile. He had remained polite and cordial by ignoring her presence, and prepared himself to walk back inside, masking the small budding hope that seemed to grow whenever she was around.

"Draco," she said, and he could not stop himself from turning to face her.

She had spent the her days underneath her covers, trying to resolve why she had left. Her fourth finger missed something desperately, and she nursed her hand, wondering why. Dreams of her childhood surrounded her, and she remembered.

At the age of nine, she had been enthralled by fairy tale romances. They had all seemed so simple, faeries didn't attack, and dragons didn't try to kill you. Knights wore armour and didn't call you Mudblood or Bitch. Life was simple, and choices were which cereal to eat, and the red berets or the green boots?

Math too, had been simple then. She remembered how her father, an accountant, had sat down each night, and schooled her in fractions, and multiplications, sums, and long division. Each problem had been beautiful in its simplicity, and she was sure to double-check. In case he had thrown in something that was impossible, which of course made arithmetic all the easier.

"Perfect," her father had told her, and she had beamed, proud that she could do tenth grade arithmetic. Her father put down his red pen, and then wrinkled his brow.

"But there's a mistake. This problem is not impossible," he told her, and handed it back to her. She looked up, certain that he was mistaken. Waiting patiently, she half expected him to smile and say that he was joking. When he did not, she perused the problem, wondering how it could possibly work.

"It is difficult to know when something is impossible," he reached for the pen again, and rearranged the number to make sense. "It may look difficult, a problem that is, but expand it, or in this case, simplify it and" – and he scribbled furiously, illuminating the solution with ease and grace – "never be afraid of innovation, or trying it out. Math is not actually about the numbers, but rather about the connections they hold and-"

She cut him off and rolled her eyes. "I got it daddy."

Two years later, her Hogwarts acceptance letter had come, and her father had ceased his arithmetic lessons, telling her that it was no longer of use. Her bags had been packed and ready, and her father had coughed and smiled weakly. Part of her wanted to throw every spell book away, and return to a wonderful simple solution. Unfortunately, simple and Hermione were never quite right.

And she had thought that she could change that, but watching Draco – Draco, not Malfoy – sitting in slacks, his hand reached out in expecting the ring, had created new problems, new equations, and even new-fucking-numbers. Innovation, she thought lying on her bed. Connections, and simplification.

Now she stood behind him, inches away, and she reached out for him, apologizing without words, letting him know that she had chosen. She stood on her tip-toes and kissed him on the cheek, trailing her kisses to his ear and neck. He grinned then, and she could feel the numbers sliding into place, rearranging themselves for them.

_Ten_

Ten had never been his favorite number. On his tenth birthday, Millicent had taken the first slice of cake, and smashed it into his face. He remembers staring at her, hating her with all the fury a ten year old possessed. Later, when she and Blaise were sitting underneath a tree, he had sent a horde of bats chasing her. Screaming, she had ran, and Draco carefully selected another slice of cake.

It was during the tenth week of his seventh year summer when he discovered Mozart and Beethoven, and began to believe that perhaps the muggles weren't completely evil. Shocked, he paused unsure of himself. He thought of trying to blend in with …them, and secretly listening to the concertos, falling into the music. Hating himself, he kept his secret inside. He remembered bewitching the piano to play and refusing to move for hours.

He had read ten books during their numerous separations, each of them detailing the differences between the wizards and the non-magical folk. They listed millions of reasons, and she had defied them all. She wasn't spotted, webbed, or filled with disease. Instead, she was petite, pretty, and obsessed with cleanliness. It had made him sick, and he had burned each of the ten books.

He looks at the ten beds before him, and smiled. Ten is a beautiful number he thought, as he approached one tiny bed. Ten little fingers and ten pink toes poked out of the blankets, wiggling and wriggling.

"She's perfect," he coos as his daughter uses both hands to cling to his fingers. So…tiny, he thought. She will have the skill of his mother, and his blood coursing through each of those ten fingers.

"How could I have ever hated ten?" he whispered to himself.

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**Yes**: au, post-war, post-hogwarts, romance (and a tinge of humor!), good trio relations

**No: **incest, gore, children, sad harry, broken trio

I figured I might as well post this. Huaaaaaaah. Someone introduced me to another fanfic called Ennead, and it centers around the number nine. I was _really _suprised. But great minds think alike... ehhhhh?

MORE EDIT: Re-did a lot of nine. Made more sense this way I think. I'll probably re-do it once again before the summer's up. Actually, I'm really surprised I even like this fic. It has terrible moments, and there are parts when everything is far too forced. Ahhh, the love-hate relationship between author and work.


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